2017 has witnessed a boom in the number of international arbitrations in the energy sector. This is no surprise. Indeed, at the end of 2016, ICSID’s caseload-statistics reported that 42% of cases administered by ICSID arose from the energy sector, which was more than any other sector. As anticipated, this rise has continued throughout 2017….

On the campaign trail, and throughout his term in office, President Trump has not been shy to express his discontent with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), vowing he will either renegotiate it or “tear it up.” As a result, in August 2017, the United States, Canada, and Mexico (the Parties) officially began renegotiation…

Currently, several dozen arbitral claims have been lodged by investors from an EU Member-State against another EU Member-State based on the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT). These so-called intra-EU ECT-based arbitrations seem to be increasing, despite attempts by the European Commission to halt them. So far, neither the Respondent-States nor the Commission (as amicus curiae) have…

A. Introduction Investments in a foreign country entail risks for the investors. These include the possibility that their investments will be nationalized or expropriated if, for example, a political change occurs. There is also a risk of loss as a result of war, armed conflict, revolution, a state of national emergency, etc. However, on 29…

Introduction The investment solar energy saga triggered by the regulatory reforms in the renewable energy undertaken by Spain and Italy is likely to be the new Black Swan in the investment arbitration world, reaching the importance and controversy of the Argentinian crisis of 2001. In addition, the question whether the ISDS system has learnt the…

On May 4, 2017 the third final award on the Spanish energy arbitration saga was unveiled. After two wins against Charanne and Isolux Infrastructure (both SCC), this time the foreign investors scored a point, leaving the overall score table at 2-1. In Eiser, the first ICSID case to reach a final award related to the…

The ICSID Tribunal in the case Eskosol S.p.A. in Liquidazione v. Italian Republic (ICSID Case No.ARB/15/50) has recently issued a Decision on Respondent’s Application under Rule 41(5) of the ICSID Rules of Procedure for Arbitration Proceedings (Arbitration Rules). In 2015, Eskosol filed a Request for Arbitration based on Italy’s claimed violation of the Energy Charter…

The 4th Annual Joint Conference on International Energy Arbitration, co-hosted by the Institute for Transnational Arbitration (ITA), the Institute for Energy Law (IEL), and the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), took place on January 12-13, 2017, in Houston, Texas. Under the guidance of conference co-chairs Suzana Blades (ConocoPhillips, Houston),…

The Paris Agreement does not include an enforcement mechanism. However, trends show that different actors have been innovative in using different legal mechanisms to address environmental and climate change issues. As noted by the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce in this respect, “[g]reen investors have resorted to international arbitration to resolve disputes related to, among others,…

The development of international arbitration in recent years has led to a significant multiplication of arbitration institutions around the world. In fact, every major city related to trade or industry has at least one dispute resolution centre. In addition to having long-standing, very reputable institutions for resolving commercial disputes, i.e. the ICC in Paris or…

The 3rd Annual Joint Conference on International Energy Arbitration, co-hosted by the Institute for Transnational Arbitration (ITA), the Institute for Energy Law (IEL), and the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), took place on January 14-15, 2016, in Houston, Texas. Under the guidance of conference co-chairs C. Mark Baker (Norton…

by Nikos Lavranos, European Federation for Investment Law and Arbitration (EFILA) Whereas all the attention in the TTIP-debate has been focusing on the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions and, more recently, on the proposal of the European Commission for the creation of an investment court system (ICS), the proposed energy chapter – with potentially much…

In May this year some seventy-five states and institutions adopted (of which sixty-five signed) the International Energy Charter (IEC) in The Hague ministerial conference to herald a new age of global energy co-operation. The Charter is a political declaration by states and it modernises its predecessor the European Energy Charter (1991) – the foundation of…

No doubt that the last three years have been quite busy for the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) and for the Energy Charter Conference. The number of investor-state arbitration cases under Article 26 of the ECT doubled in this time span, going from thirty known cases to sixty-eight (as reported on the website of the Energy…

1. Background Modern arbitration in Mexico commenced with the reforms to the Mexican Commercial Code in 1989 and with the incorporation in such code of the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration in 1993. Project agreements with state entities such as Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX) and the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) may be submitted to…

A few weeks ago, the day before the Obama Administration and the EU announced dramatic new sanctions against Russia, an international tribunal announced a $50 billion award against Russia in favor of a group of oil investors. The current violence engulfing Iraq has multiple satellite arbitration disputes over oil sales to Turkey. Recent violence on…

Every now and then the arbitration society witnesses the filing of investor-state disputes in fields previously ‘unharmed’ by the spotlight of investment adjudication. Perhaps the most recent example is the ‘hydraulically fractured’ shale gas dispute against Canada (see Lone Pine v. Canada). In a similar manner, the Vattenfall II dispute over Germany’s nuclear phase-out has…

Sandra De Vito Bieri with Anton Vucurovic 1)Sandra De Vito Bieri, attorney at law, LL.M., is a Partner and Co-Head of the Arbitration Practice Group of Bratschi Wiederkehr & Buob in Zurich and Member of the Arbitration Court of the Swiss Chambers’ Arbitration Institution; Anton Vucurovic, attorney at law, LL.M., is a Partner and Head…

The numbers of energy and mining related disputes in Latin America constitute 67 out of 162 or 41% of the total ICSID cases within the region. In most of these disputes the respondents are Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador or Venezuela, which represent 52 out of 67 or 78% of the total energy and mining ICSID cases…

and José Roberto Oliva Junior and Ricardo Dalmaso Marques, Pinheiro Neto Advogados One of the segments of the infrastructure sectors in Brazil that have lately triggered the greatest amount of disputes are the power generation, distribution and trading sectors. In effect, there’s little disagreement in Brazil nowadays that, just as with other sectors that could…